


A Single Answer to A Million Questions

by oninoshirosaki



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oninoshirosaki/pseuds/oninoshirosaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For <b>Nicole,</b> for her prompt : <i>Squalo as Red Riding Hood and Xanxus as the Big Bad Wolf.</i></p>
    </blockquote>





	A Single Answer to A Million Questions

**Author's Note:**

> For **Nicole,** for her prompt : _Squalo as Red Riding Hood and Xanxus as the Big Bad Wolf._

They call you Red Hood.

You're not exactly sure _who_ started it, but you sure as fuck know _how._ You always wear a hoodie. It's red. The wit is fucking _blinding._

It's an ordinary hoodie, really. Well-worn and faded over time, completely free of designs save for the tiny blue swallow adorning the left breast. The only real significance is that the garment's two sizes too big for you... and that it always smells like _him._

Never mind that he hasn't worn it in over two years, never mind that it's been in the wash a million fucking times. 

It always smells like green tea and rain. 

You don't even know if it's cause his scent has been permanently embedded into the fabric after years of use, or if it's just your fucked up imagination. You don't really care.

They always call you Red Hood; around the office like it's some kind of not-so-private joke, amongst the people you used to hang out with who you're not quite sure can pass for friends. Hell, it's even in the fucking _papers._

It's the price you pay for dating a fucking _sportsman._ And you don't even _like_ sports. _Fame_ \- you've learned over the course of those four years - does _not_ suit you. _Attention_ does, but that's another thing entirely.

It annoys you, but you've always learned to brush the silly nickname off. They call you a lot of other things, too - _worse_ ones - and you didn't get to where you are today by listening to spiteful, immature fucktards. 

Only... it's _different_ now.

 _Now_ the sound of those usually innocuous words is like a rusty knife scraping your insides raw, like gravel in the back of your already parched throat.

But somehow - _somehow_ \- you can't bring yourself to _stop_ wearing that hood.

\--

 _"Four years,"_ you complain to Dino over drinks at the bar one morning.

 _How terribly **cliché,**_ except your _drink_ is red tea, and the _bar_ is actually the counter in the kitchen of this ridiculously diminutive apartment.

Dino's not some overworked, underpaid bartender lending a sympathetic ear and pretending he really _gives a fuck._ He's your childhood friend - now roommate - who lives on caffeine, wears clumsiness as a front, and teaches English to second graders at Namimori Elementary School. He's the only person you indubitably trust with everything you _are._

 _"Four **fucking** years,"_ you rant, drunk on bitterness and alcohol you didn't drink, "and I don't know how much of it was _true._ "

Dino's fingers rake through soft blond waves, his tone is oddly subdued. "I think you _do_ know, Squalo."

The base of your porcelain cup slams itself against the marble countertop, your drink threatens to make good on its promise to spill over. "You know how I fucking _feel?_ " 

It's a rhetorical question, Dino shakes his head anyway.

"It's like there's a fucking _bushel_ of jagged rocks in the pit of my stomach, grinding my intestines into dust. Like a fucking _boulder_ to my face every fucking time I hear his name at work, every fucking time I see his face on a goddamn magazine cover at the newsstand down the street." 

_Every fucking time I think of him._

Dino never tells you you cuss too much. Probably because his quotidian swearing capacity rivals your own. Instead, he just runs the pad of his index finger over the rim of his glass, fixes you with a long-suffering expression of someone who's heard this philippic innumerable times. "He really _did_ love you, Squalo."

You stand up so quickly, your stool tips over. Anger sears itself into your veins - so violent, you feel it could melt the flesh off your bones - and your lips draw back in an irate snarl. "Then why the fucking _fuck_ was he fucking someone _else?!?_ "

Dino sips his Coke, evidently unable to offer the response you're seeking.

\--

"It always begins with _once upon a time,_ " Dino - black-framed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, lit cigarette dangling between his lips - announces one Wednesday night, carelessly dumping a stack of notebook paper onto the low coffee table in the middle of your living room.

You never fail to marvel at that. He drops _everything_ \- files, bills, lesson plans, homework assignments - like he doesn't give two shits and they always, _always_ remain in one neat little pile; like there's glue holding them together or something. 

_Your_ talent's balancing a pencil on the edge of your finger for thirty seconds. _Dino's_ is making inanimate objects stubbornly refuse to come apart.

He sits himself down on the dark green _zabuton,_ legs crossing themselves Indian style, and cracks his knuckles. "And it always ends with _happily ever after._ "

From your supine position on the irrefutably _hideous_ \- but sinfully _comfortable_ \- beige couch, you take a drag on a cigarette of your own, blow a perfect 'O' in Dino's general direction, and raise a sardonic eyebrow. "And I care, _why?_ "

Dino picks up a red marker, taps it against the paper on top of the pile. "There's a lesson to be learned here, _Superbi._ "

Your eyebrow arches higher at the use of your first name - no one but Tyr ever calls you that - and you promptly sit up, rescuing the topmost essay from the rhythmic abuse of Dino's pen. Your silver-gray irises quickly scan the childish writing scrawled upon the spaces between rows and rows of thin black lines. "Let's see... _Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful princess in a castle under the sea._ " You set the essay back on the wooden table; loosely resting the cigarette between your fingers, its reddish-orange edge hovering dangerously close to the assignment. "I don't need to read the rest to know how it ends."

You wave your hand indicatively, ash falls onto the paper, blurring out the name of the child responsible for constructing such a laughable fantasy. "Let me guess - "

Dino hurriedly snatches the essay away from your reach, shakes the ash off into a now empty noodle carton. "Watch it, jackass! You'll burn a fucking hole through it!"

You roll your eyes hard enough to be _heard._ "I'm sure the brat will live. What the fuck does it matter? It's always the same story anyway - gallant prince rescues helpless princess from the clutches of her evil stepmother, _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._ And you have to grade - what? - _thirty_ of these? Fucking sucks to be you." You take in another lungful of bluish-gray smoke, casually lace your fingers behind your head, and lean yourself against the couch's lumpy backrest. "Show me the lesson in _that._ "

Dino twirls the marker between his fingers absently, peers at you from over the top of his reading glasses. "You remember how, when we were kids, it didn't matter what kind of shithole we dug ourselves into, we'd _always_ come out unscathed? Kids always have a way of solving problems without making them _become_ problems, y'know? _This_ \- " he taps the pile of essays again, "shows us that relationships - _life_ \- can be pretty straightforward. It _is_ easy to lead an easy existence."

You stare at your best friend, eyebrows arching themselves almost high enough to disappear into your hairline, eyes blown wide in unconcealed incredulity. "Where'd you get _that_ one? A fucking _t-shirt?_ Or from the _brilliant_ mind of an eight-year-old who still believes that all of the universe's fucked up bullshit can be instantly eradicated with _true love's kiss?_ "

Dino only shrugs. "And why the hell not? No one ever said it was impossible."

You shoot him a derisive sneer right back. "Sorry, but _I_ didn't grow up in _that_ version of the world. Eat a poisoned apple and you sure as shit won't get up again. Walk around in glass slippers and they'll shred your pretty feet." You reach for the half-empty beer bottle perched perilously on the edge of the low table. "Your _kids_ need to learn to grow the fuck up."

Dino pulls the cigarette from his lip, points it at you. "And _you_ need to learn to stop being such a goddamn _cynic._ Take a cue from my _kids,_ Squalo. Shit's only easy or difficult cause we _make_ it so."

A contemptuous scoff reflexively escapes your lips. "Nothing in life is straightforward. Reality's complicated, _Sensei._ It's fucked up."

Dino shakes his head, golden blond hair ruffling with the motion. "It doesn't _have_ to be. Think about it, if both parties in a relationship were honest from the get-go - "

"Oh, I know _all_ about _honesty,_ " you deadpan drily, curling a loose thread at the cuff of your hoodie around your left index finger. "Life isn't a fucking _fairy tale,_ Dino." You lie back on the couch, stretching out as long as you are, and declare around the barrel of your cigarette, "There can _be_ no happy endings."

\--

Nowadays, you often find yourself mired in an ocean of _what if_ s.

It's funny, really. If there's _one_ thing you've always prided yourself in, it's living in the present.

Takeshi always used to say, "Why brood over something you can't change, or worry about something that may never happen? _Right now_ is the only thing that matters."

He was right. Dwelling in the past is stupid.

Except that _right now_ hurts like a fucking _bitch._

It's like a vise clamping down so brutally on your still beating heart, you can't find it in yourself to _breathe._ It's like a million tiny fishhooks lodging themselves into your bones, trying to drag your skeleton from your skin. It's sandpaper scraping your insides raw, a fucking _sledgehammer_ crushing your windpipe.

So you find yourself grasping - slippery fingers around smoke curls or glass surfaces - and always wondering, _what if, what if, what if._

_What if I'd never become a journalist? What if I'd never taken that assignment? What if Takeshi and I never met?_

_**"Cut that out."** _

It's that deep, rough voice - august as any patrician, authoritative as any command - that breaks you out of yet another spell of self-flagellation. 

Reality is _here,_ standing by the bookcase in the cozy den of an excessively opulent mansion. Your soundtrack is the unceasing _taptaptap_ of dexterous fingers dancing along a notebook keyboard. The fingers belong to a man - lustrous obsidian hair and tanned skin, an Adonic frame which emanates unending confidence and self-awareness.

Familiar irritation dredges up; you find your eyes narrowing to slits, even if your mind doesn't stop pounding out the unstoppable cadence of _what if_ s. "Cut _what_ out?"

Xanxus's fingers steadfastly maintain their rhythm. He doesn't even bother to turn and look at you. "You're ruminating too loud."

Six beats - _six,_ where your stare remains fixed upon the flex of his back's corded muscles beneath that ever-present white shirt - before your gaze shifts towards the bookshelf and you randomly pick out a paperback amongst the ridiculously vast collection. You idly flip through the pages, annoyed scowl screwing up your pale visage. "Sorry." You don't really know why, but it _matters_ to you what Xanxus thinks.

Xanxus : wrote half the books displayed on this shelf, is a mutual friend of yours and Dino's, knows himself Lord and Master of this very mansion (and pretty much every room he enters), loves Sichuan cuisine, vehemently abhors the fetor of cigarette smoke, owns a stuffed liger named Bester his father had custom-made for his fourth birthday, sleeps a lot, sees _everything_ even when he isn't looking, and - like Dino - is every bit the idealist.

Maybe it's because he's never been denied anything he's ever wanted. Maybe it's because he doesn't _care_ what people think.

You quickly scan the book - _Mujaki na Egao,_ the third in Xanxus's _Amayaka na Suuhai_ series - and your silver-gray eyes pick out a line.

_...walks down the street, eyes seeking out his reflection in a shop window. He startles when he realizes the eyes staring back at him are not his own. When had he turned into this..._

It _burns._

It burns something _fierce_ \- this roaring flame, like lively sparks going off in the backs of your eyelids - and you suddenly realize the words have blurred over. You hurriedly pass the back of your right hand over your eyes, scrubbing a little too ferociously. You're surprised it comes off wet.

_What if my appointment hadn't been canceled that day? What if I hadn't gone home early? What if I never saw -_

A loud squeak - the desk chair creaking under the shift of weight, it's enough to momentarily break your chain of thought - and suddenly Xanxus is _right there._ He moves like a wolf, a silent hunter. He is stealth and levity and keen discernment; an assassin whose existence you would know nothing of, were his tracks not painted in the snow.

"Squalo, _stop._ "

His eyes are like lightning - sharp as a loyal sword, red like blood upon its gleaming edge. He stares at you like he can read your innermost thoughts, like he can see through your rapidly fracturing soul. It makes you feel _naked;_ like there's nothing you could possibly hide from him, and although you've always been a fundamentally honest person, you know that with - _to_ \- Xanxus, you could never, ever _lie._

"It _hurts,_ " you confess, and dear god, you utterly _loath_ that crack in your voice, _hate_ how the fire scorches your lachrymal ducts like hot, hot coals. "It just _hurts_ so fucking much and I feel..." _Deep breath, two, maybe ten._ "It's stupid cause I know I _shouldn't,_ but I just feel so, so _alone._ "

_What if I forgive him?_

But then, Xanxus's hand lies on the crown of your head, agile fingers threading through your hair. The gesture - his _touch_ \- is enough to drive that previous thought from your mind. His gaze never leaves yours, his lips part and shape around simple words which become your anchor. 

_" **I'm** here."_

And so you shatter, book escaping your grasp and landing with a dull thud upon the carpet beneath your feet. An anguished wail is pulled from your lungs, and - against the warmth of Xanxus's muscular chest, within the security of his strong arms - your mind churns with a different set of _what if_ s.

_What if it had been **Xanxus** instead of Takeshi?_

\--

People always say that you never forget your first love.

The truth is, you never forget your first _heartbreak,_ either.

Namimori, Japan, no, the whole fucking _world_ is too damn small to keep you from remembering. A word, a name, a place, an incident - they're all triggers to an inextricable nightmare on repeat.

You remember his smiles and wonder how many of them were masks. You recall his affections and wonder how much of those were lies. You think about him fucking you and wonder how many times he imagined you were someone else.

Sometimes, you reckon, there isn't enough space in this entire universe to keep you both apart.

It's the cheesiest cliché in the world, but there was a time when you actually believed you knew him better than he knew himself. But now, watching him stand before you in front of a convenience store - fingers looped through the handle of a bagful of Pocari Sweat, condescending pity in his amber eyes, starkly at odds with the warmth of his usual smile - you realize that you don't know him at all.

Why the fuck did you have to run into him _here?_ All you wanted was a pack of smokes, for fuck's sake!

Takeshi smirks - eyes blatantly running up and down your entire frame - with a kind of maliciousness you never knew he could possess. "You look good, _babe._ "

The pet name makes you flinch like you've been hit. Bile steadily builds in the bottom of your throat and you bare your teeth in a menacing growl. "Just what the _fuck_ \- "

Takeshi leans forward - god, you _despise_ these four inches he has over you - and reaches out; calloused fingers meeting the fabric at the base of your ( _his_ ) hood, the point where it melts into your collar, and you jump like you've just been branded with a red-hot poker.

He only smiles - this foreign, foreign thing you can't recognize. It makes you feel foolish, like stumbling over words of a language you've only just begun to learn, and you immensely _detest_ him for it.

"You're _still_ wearing this?"

Even now, he has a habit of stating the obvious. Even now, you find it annoying as hell.

You shoot him your dirtiest glare. "Wow. Your powers of observation are _astounding._ "

And Takeshi draws his hand back, chuckling like the goddamn self-satisfied _bastard_ he is - like the bastard you never knew he _could_ be. "You should throw it away. Burn it, donate it to charity, _something._ "

Your glare intensifies. _"What."_

He has the gall to turn, to attempt walking away. He looks over his shoulder at you, beer-colored irises flashing something unreadable that makes your skin prickle in anger and the muscles in your back knot up. "It's been half a year, Squalo. Don't you think it's about time you let me go?"

You didn't ask for this. This _humiliation,_ this _hurt._ Rage erupts within you like a vengeful volcano, consumes you like a tidal wave. Within moments, you've got your hand around his wrist.

Surprise flickers in his face for an instant, but your fist swings up and makes contact with his jaw - before he gets a chance to fully register what you're doing, before you even realize that you've _moved._

The strike is enough to make him stagger backward, and - ever the opportunist - you take your cue to slam him hard against the wall. Inside, rage swells and swirls with the hurt, thrums agonizingly bone-deep. "Fuck you!!! Fucking _fuck_ you, Takeshi!!!"

His back collides harshly against blue-painted concrete - you feel a twinge of disappointment that he hasn't fallen _through_ it - and he loses his grip on the plastic bag holding his purchase. It, in turn, slams against cement; bottles rolling around on the sidewalk, some bursting upon impact. A puddle of colorless liquid begins to pool at your feet.

Takeshi groans - hand held to his bloody mouth - and tries to pull himself upright. And then, he has the audacity to _laugh._ "Oi, calm down, Squalo. People are staring."

Maybe they are, but you can't see them. All you see is Takeshi mocking you. All you see is his face contorted with pleasure when you caught him fucking his childhood friend in your bed - the way he always looked with _you._ All you see is four years based on a lie.

You slam him against the wall again. "Like I _give_ a fuck, motherfucker!!! _Fuck you!!!_ " Reflexively, your fist is flying at his face again - you're startled when he grabs both your wrists in an aggressively tight hold; the way he always did when he used to pin you to the bed, or against the wall, and fuck you like a guy who'd just gotten out of prison. The sensation of his skin against yours sends a current up and down your spine, like a million tiny teeth gnawing each vertebra. It's enough to give you pause - _seconds,_ really; but that's all he needs. 

Takeshi is an opportunist, too.

He leans his weight forward, tightening his hold on your wrists, blood staining his teeth and dripping down his chin. " _Gokudera's_ the one I love now." He speaks slowly - _carefully_ \- as if he thinks you're stupid, and the next words out of his mouth are like holes being drilled into your skull, over and over, while you're still kept conscious.

"You understand, Squalo? _I don't love you anymore._ "

\--

Once, Xanxus said, "Everything I feel is worth mentioning, I express through my writing."

He was joking at the time, but he meant it, too.

It's always different with Xanxus.

Dino likes to fill the quiet - with conversation, music, the sound of a pen scratching against paper, occasionally even a TV show.

With Xanxus, sometimes it's nothing _but_ silence. 

The thing about silence is, it makes you notice _everything._ The ticking of a clock, the low hum of a refrigerator, the sound of a shaver when it slides against skin, the way a person _breathes._

Maybe that's why Xanxus misses nothing.

Where most people look, he _sees._ Where everyone hears, he _listens._ Where others smell, he _breathes._ Where someone tastes, he _savors._ Where others touch, he _feels._ And where everyone gets entangled in the enervating monotony of quotidian obligations, he _lives._

Xanxus doesn't really talk much - to anyone who isn't you or Dino - but when he does, it's always because he has something worth saying. He says so much more in a simple sentence than most people do in _lifetimes_ of conversations.

Xanxus is inherently an observer, always watching everything the way he watches you right now - arms crossed casually over the front of his white shirt, perceptive crimson gaze following your every move, like a ravenous canid tracking its prey. The ornately carved oaken double doors of his bedroom act as support to his weight - he doesn't move from that spot; just listens to you rant with a kind of detached patience most people are unaware he possesses. Xanxus doesn't lie - he's just a different person to different people.

"You know what this is?" you seethe, fingers catching red fabric and tugging the hoodie over your head with far more force than necessary. "It's utter fucking _bullshit!!!_ " The oversized garment is violently flung to the immaculate marble floor - like it's the exclamation mark to your heated declaration - and you firmly resist the petty urge to stomp all over it like a petulant five-year-old who's just been denied his favorite toy.

"What the hell _was_ I?!? A _conquest?_ His _fucktoy?_ A fucking _joke?!?_ " You reach inside the already open closet, left hand closing around the shirt nearest to you, yanking it off its hanger and roughly pulling it on. "Y'know, you don't spend _years_ of your life telling someone how much you love them, and then do something that proves they don't mean shit!!!"

"But Yamamoto's not The One," Xanxus states in a tone that suggests it's the most obvious truth in the world.

You momentarily cease trying to wrestle the black dress shirt into submission and scowl darkly. "If he isn't, why the fuck did I waste four of my best years on him?"

Xanxus finally leaves the comfort of his bedroom door, reaching you in quick strides. If he were Dino, he'd be telling you to _calm down already._ But Xanxus, being _Xanxus,_ remains silent; fastening the buttons on your - _his_ \- shirt in slow, deliberate movements. 

An exasperated breath escapes your lips. "Y'know, I fucking _hated_ the cameras. Everywhere we fucking went there was _always_ someone - trying to take a picture, get an autograph, shake his fucking _hand._ " Wave after wave of torment crested with the mordacious burn of betrayal unremittingly crashes into you, runs riot inside you - it makes you feel your soul corroding like an immovable rock at the mercy of high tide. "And I fucking _loathe_ baseball. I don't even _understand_ it, but I _went_ to his fucking games. I worked fucking _hard_ in this relationship and _he_ was fucking that bipolar _asshole!_ "

Xanxus finishes buttoning your shirt, fixes you with a steady, judicious look. "Well, that's where you've gone wrong. You're not supposed to _work_ at it."

A pronounced frown is fleet to inscribe itself between your silver brows. "What are you _talking_ about?"

Xanxus steps away, quietly shuts his closet door. "Relationships shouldn't require _effort._ If you're really compatible, it wouldn't _be_ work."

Your fingers twist themselves into the ends of Xanxus's shirt, effectively crumpling it. The fabric smells like lemon and grapefruit and _Xanxus_ \- nothing at all like green tea and rain. You feel like burying yourself deep inside it, shutting out the rest of the world. Maybe when you resurface, all memory of Takeshi would be gone and you'll stop feeling like you're being forced through a woodchipper feet first.

Your lips pull into a tight, grim line. "You sound just like Dino." It's funny, you think, how similar your friends are, and how unlike each other at the same time. 

Xanxus shrugs nonchalantly, buries his fingers into your hair in that manner which makes strange - but in no way _unpleasant_ \- sensations dance beneath your skin, permeating your veins and settling themselves comfortably around your bones. He tilts your head upwards so you're locked beneath the brunt of his entrancing, sagacious stare. "If you have to fight for something, it's not worth it in the first place."

\--

People always have this rotten habit of complicating things.

It's as if the human mind is entirely incapable of wrapping itself around the concept of anything straightforward. There aren't any how-to steps. No bag of tricks. No brain-numbing riddles. No trap doors or inscrutable manuals or puzzling contraptions. Nothing behind the curtain.

It's too simple to understand. It's too simple so it can't be true.

The world's a facile place populated with complicated people. It's filled with innumerable recondite rules everyone's expected to abide by as if they were God's law, not manmade bullshit.

The thing is, you've never _known_ the luxury of _simple._ There's nothing like growing up in an orphanage to help you get well acquainted with the concept of broken dreams.

Dino calls you a cynic, but how _could_ you be when you're more clear-eyed than everyone else? Abandoned by your parents. Mistreated by your caretakers. Moved from foster home to foster home, and all you ever learned from them were rejection and abuse. Bullied for the color of your hair, for knowing too much, for being who you _are._ These incidents only serve to make you more aware of what this world really _is._

The hard truth is, where you come from, ugly ducklings _don't_ turn into swans. Stable boys _don't_ marry princesses.

You're not sure what your first word was, but you sure as fuck know the first emotion you've ever felt. _Unwanted. Unneeded._

It's not that you don't get what idealism is all about. You've lived _your_ version of the fairy tale, too. Running away from the orphanage. Getting adopted by Tyr. Meeting Dino. Meeting _Xanxus._ Falling in love with Takeshi. If your life were a storybook, then Takeshi would have been your _happily ever after._

But look how _that_ one turned out.

Dino's wrong, you're not a cynic. Cynics always employ a skewed perspective - a crooked way of viewing the world. What you _are_ is a _realist,_ calling everything the way they are. _Impartial,_ like an umpire.

You weren't _always_ this clear-eyed. _You've_ slipped, too. There was a time when you bought into the delusion of a perfect life. Everyone always says, _"There's no such thing as perfect."_ For a while, you thought they were wrong. They weren't.

People hurt each other. They hurt _you._ And you return the favor. Even _Dino_ \- who's constantly trying his utmost to do good - hurts people with his kindness. That's just the way it is.

All those feelings you've been steeped in the first ten years of your life, you thought you'd never experience them again. But they came brutally surging back the moment Takeshi said he no longer loved you. _Unwanted. Unneeded. **Abandoned.**_

And then, there's Xanxus.

If there was ever a poster boy for idealism, Xanxus would be it. 

Imbued in privilege since birth, he's a man who - having no care for the opinions of others - does as he pleases; utterly disregarding time, occasion, and circumstance. His entire existence is based upon one core principle - to _"live a life completely of our own choosing, not what society expects of us."_ Xanxus has absolutely no concept of _hard work, compromise, sacrifice._ He doesn't comprehend _impossible,_ knows naught of _limitation._

These days, you find yourself spending more and more time with him. 

These days, you find yourself looking at Xanxus, thinking, _Want me. Want me. Want me._

It's a devout mantra. A single-note tune, like the beating heart beneath the floorboards in Poe's story. _Does he hear me,_ you often wonder, _the way the murderer heard his victim's heart thrum?_

_Would he want me at **all?**_

It's always different with Xanxus. There's just something about him - something indescribable - that _secures_ you; like a desperately sought for foothold when you're dangling from the precarious edge of a rapidly crumbling cliff. Everything about him - a touch, a word, a look - is enough to soothe you; calm you down on your worst days.

Even his very _presence_ itself - like this moment; lying in his expansive garden beneath the shade of a cedar tree, beams of waning evening sun filtering through the leaves, mottling different parts of your supine frame and pleasantly warming your skin - engenders within you a serenity you heretofore hadn't realized you've missed.

It makes you feel _comfortable_ \- like stretching out on that couch in your living room in a posture so _lazy,_ you almost think you could _melt_ into the fabric. _Safe_ \- like the smooth cotton of Xanxus's shirt sliding against your skin. _Content_ \- like lazy afternoons spent curled up on the couch in Xanxus's den, feet tucked under you, headphones over your ears, and good book in your hand; the master of said den himself sprawled in his favorite armchair, perusing a book of his own.

 _"What?"_ your companion's voice cuts through your seemingly endless stream of thoughts, like trenchant canines tearing meat from bone, like a gleaming katana slicing air.

You don't know _how_ he does it; yet another unfathomable ability that makes Xanxus _Xanxus_ \- sense that you have something to say even when you've offered no indication of wishing to say anything at all.

Your right ankle crosses itself over your left, you feel all the tension accumulated over the past six months gradually leave your body. "This feels... _good._ " You resent how inept you are sometimes. How frequently you fail to articulate your emotions in a way that _wouldn't_ make you sound like a gormless _moron._ "I'd forgotten," you breathe, throwing your left arm over your eyes, as if the very action is enough to shield you from getting hurt again, "what peace felt like."

What you _don't_ expect to feel are fingers - calloused from years of training and writing, from piano and violin playing; but _beautiful_ all the same - closing around your wrist, gently pulling your arm from your face.

You find yourself staring into Xanxus's eyes - feral crimson and, if you know just where to look (you always do), gentle kindness which he proffers to none but you. His irises are bottomless lakes of blood and fire - you want to drown in them till all you breathe is no longer air, but his scent.

Then, he's leaning over you - blanketing your body with his own - and you find yourself being kissed so thoroughly, you're almost certain you would sink into the ground. His lips are warm against yours - they send a madly pulsing heat rushing through your insides like white water rapids, like an unquenchable wildfire. He kisses you with a kind of threatening hunger and a tenderness you _know_ he reserves exclusively for you; powerful enough to drive every _what if,_ every _if only_ from your brain.

When you part for air, a million different questions die in your throat, but you're pretty sure they're evident in the widening of your eyes.

"I _do,_ " Xanxus says, brushing the pad of his thumb against the left corner of your mouth; it makes your toes curl unbidden against your bare feet, " _want you,_ Squalo."

It isn't a million answers, but it's enough.

\--

Somebody once said, _"Pain is a good thing cause it lets you know you're alive."_

In all honesty, you think whoever said that was full of shit.

It's a strange thing, really. Holding on to the past. To reminders of things that hurt. More often than not, it's _pain_ that shapes people into who they are. You wonder why. Why it's so damn easy to choose to remember bad experiences over good ones. 

Heartbreaks. Rejections. Abuse. Losing pets, jobs, opportunities, loved ones. These are the kinds of things which _change_ people, which determine the course and quality of the rest of their lives.

It doesn't matter if they happened forever ago. The kid who always got picked on cause he was fat. The girl who never got asked to prom just cause she had braces on her teeth. The man who's branded a freak and a loser just cause he still lives with his parents at twenty-five. These are the things that stick with someone for an eternity.

People always brag about getting over it and moving on, but the truth is, no one _ever_ moves on. The past _hurts,_ and everyone lies to forget those hurts.

It reminds you of a game you and Dino used to play. _"Smile, Squalo,"_ he'd say, whenever it was sunny out. 

_"I can't,"_ you'd always answer, lips thinned into a somber line. _"I'm only happy when it rains."_

Such foolish children you both were. Such fools to not realize the rain hurts as much as the sun, too.

 _I don't know,_ you muse silently one Sunday afternoon, staring into the open top of a worn out cardboard box at Dino's middle school yearbooks, _why we do these things to ourselves._ You retrieve the topmost book, wave it offhandedly. "Why do you still _have_ these?"

You're both in the attic of Dino's childhood home, searching for old workbooks he intends to use for Creative Writing class. It feels like _lifetimes_ since you've been here, and yet, it feels like time hadn't passed at all. 

Dino - kneeling on the dusty floorboards - pauses in rummaging through a box of his own, shoots you a very dry look. "Why do _you_ still have Yamamoto's hooded sweatshirt?" he returns smoothly, like a flawless serve from a skilled tennis player.

You scowl inimically at him, but remain silent. _Touché,_ indeed. 

Dino is a jerk who gets off on putting you on the spot every now and then, like it's his God-given right or something. _"It's a privilege,"_ he likes to say, _"by virtue of being older."_

Never mind that he's older by only a _month._ He's sort of a bastard like that. 

Still, it irks you that he's always _right._

Dino's kinda an anomaly, really; a walking contradiction of sorts. Beneath his gracious, benevolent exterior lurks someone who's not unaccustomed to issuing orders and not afraid of bossing you around. His saintlike patience every so often gives way to a lethal temper, his winsome smile expertly conceals a wit that's as sharp as any knife. Dino's unusually compassionate, yet viciously protective of anyone he loves, especially against the people who hurt them. You _know._ You've seen evidence of that, firsthand. 

You always wonder what his kids would say if they discovered their well-mannered, amiable educator is also a man who personifies all the clichés. Dino smokes like a house on fire, drinks like a parched plant in a thunderstorm, and swears like the possessed in an exorcism.

 _I don't know,_ you want to - _would_ \- tell him, if you knew it wouldn't damage your pride, _why **I** do this to myself, either._ Instead, you tug at the V neckline of your khaki green jumper - the one you stole right out of Xanxus's closet - and grumble, "It's not like I'm _wearing_ it now."

Dino rolls his eyes dramatically, slides an unopened box your way along the wooden floor. "Here, look through _that_ one, will you?"

"I don't see why we're wasting all this time searching for your old shit," you complain, but slice through the duct tape anyway. "Why can't you just _buy_ the friggin' books?"

Dino gets up, stretches until his back pops, before reaching for yet another cardboard box. "I told you, they don't print those anymore."

The box you've just uncovered reveals a stack of plain, light blue notebooks. You flip one open curiously, eyes going wide upon registering the writing in it. The lettering's less... _sophisticated,_ somehow, but you recognize it anyway. There's only _one_ person you know who writes with such a fine hand.

" _Xanxus_ wrote those."

You glance up to see Dino watching you, nostalgia dancing clearly in his hazel irises. 

He jerks his chin in the direction of the book you're holding. "They're _novels_ \- stories he wrote when he was like, eight, nine years old. He'd lend them to me sometimes. Some were gifts." He steps closer to the box. "Actually, I could probably use some of these for class."

Your eyes return to the words on the page, fingers tightening around the covers, proverbial fist tightening in your gut. "Mm."

 _Fear_ is another kind of pain. It's the worst kind, too, cause it keeps you shackled where you are, instead of moving forward. If a person gets involved in a car accident, it'll be a while before they work up the courage to get behind the wheel. If they almost drown, they'd probably never get back into the water again. And if they were _betrayed..._

"What are you thinking, Squalo?"

Momentarily, you startle. And then, you _lie._ "Nothing. It's stupid." _There's nothing good about the hurt. If pain is an indication of being alive, I'd rather be numb and dead._

Dino's eyes are swift to narrow in warning. _"Squalo."_

"Just..." You close the book, tap the faded cover with the index and middle fingers of your right hand. "I'm afraid of how this will end." 

_Xanxus doesn't have to cheat to break my heart._

A mirthless chuckle escapes your lips, your shoulder lifts itself in a half-shrug. "I guess it's easy to be scared when you have so much to lose."

Dino stares at you with a kind of deep seriousness written all over his features - the kind he gets when he's trying to tell you something important. "He's not Yamamoto, y'know. He won't break your heart."

\--

 _It's funny,_ you think, seated on the edge of the couch in your living room and staring at the rumpled hoodie in your hand, _how the best - and worst - feelings can be evoked from something so ordinary._

Funny, indeed, how the powers of association work in this world. The same song on the radio could make someone want to kill themselves, could save someone else's life. The scent of perfume, the taste of champagne, a movie poster, a peach pit. Everything in life is a trigger, everything means something - or nothing - to someone. 

This piece of red cloth cut to just the right size for Takeshi, the wrong size for _you_ \- maybe it wouldn't _mean_ anything if it belonged to someone else. Maybe it wouldn't _matter_ that you're called Red Hood. Maybe _green tea_ would just be a drink, the _rain_ would just be part of the weather, and _baseball_ would just be another dumb game.

_Why does it always take countless tries - incalculable failures - before success? Why does so much money have to be wasted before you hit the jackpot? Why do you have to lose something in order to appreciate it? Why do you have to get your heart broken before you find The One?_

These questions have plagued you relentlessly; long before you even _met_ Takeshi. You ponder about them - turn the _why_ s and _how_ s and _what if_ s over and over in your head like a Rolodex - and come up with nothing. You would never understand why the world is stretched to its bursting point with _close calls_ and _billion to one odds,_ _missed opportunities_ and _slim chances._

_Why do we have to make a million mistakes before we get one thing right?_

_"At least you **got** it right,"_ Tyr's voice echoes in your head - the answer to these questions you've given voice to on numerous occasions. _"That makes you one of the lucky ones."_

You crumple and uncrumple the hoodie repeatedly, run your thumb contemplatively over the blue swallow imprinted upon red. _**Lucky,** huh?_

Maybe Tyr and Dino and Xanxus were right all along. Maybe things don't _have_ to be complicated. Maybe all you really need is luck. That, and a gazillion _second chances._

And then, the buzzer sounds, jolting you from your thoughts. You stand and head for the intercom, hit the _Talk_ button, even though you already know who's on the other end. "Yeah?"

Xanxus's voice comes clear through the speakers. "Hey. Ready to go?"

It's tough to fight the rapidly blossoming grin on your face, _impossible_ to keep the smile from your voice. "Yeah, I'll be right down." You hurriedly check that you've got your keys and wallet, reach for your fur-collared jacket on the couch. 

_I really **did** get this one right, didn't I? **Father.**_

Before leaving your apartment, you dump the hoodie into the trash.

\--

The thing you've come to realize is, life _isn't_ about easy or difficult, simple or complicated, because it just _is._ What it comes down to are opportunities and what one does with them, choices and their consequences. It's as straightforward as lyrics to a song, as perplexing as a Rubik's cube.

Life is a neverending series of _yes_ and _no_ and _maybe,_ black and white and shades of purple, male and female and both and neither. _Should I ask this person out? Do I take that job? Do I punch that asshole in the face or just keep walking? Should I keep holding on or learn to let go?_

Every moment is a fresh, blank canvas on the easel. What goes _on_ that canvas is each individual's decision. And each decision helps someone, destroys someone else. That's just the way it is.

The real question is, what do you _do_ with the opportunities presented to you? Seize them - grab life by the balls, bull by the horns, _carpe diem_ bullshit - or throw them away like a used condom, like you threw away that hoodie?

 _You_ choose to quit trying so damn hard to figure this world out and see where your roads - always millions of them, cause it's not _just_ about _left_ and _right_ and _center_ \- would lead you, like a paper bag carried in the wind.

Because _this_ is what you've learned. Life is a book, and every choice you make are the words on the pages.

"So," you intone, looking up at your best-friend-turned-lover, silver eyebrows lifted in genuine inquiry, "how does _this_ story end?"

The left corner of Xanxus's mouth quirks up in a half-smirk that's just _this_ side of feral, his eyes glint like diamonds in the cold moonlight. "It _doesn't,_ " he avers, wrapping his fingers around the loose edges of your scarf and pulling you in for a kiss. 

You decide you could live with that.


End file.
